The angry, not-so-young man John Braine became famous overnight with his 1957 novel of ruthlessly ambitious working-class Yorkshireman Joe Lampton using a mattress as a trampoline to leap, via a hypergamous affair with a self-made mill-owner's daughter, from the borough treasurer's office to the country club. Screenwriter Neil Paterson won an Oscar for an adaptation greatly improving on the book. Jack Clayton, one of Britain's most fastidious directors, made his feature debut. Cinematographer Freddie Francis gave it a gritty, Picture Post-style look and went on to shoot other films in the British new wave this film launched (Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, and Sons and Lovers). Simone Signoret won an Oscar as Joe's married lover (this was a time when sexual passion necessitated the importation of continental actresses) and the supporting cast is a gallery of familiar faces, many then new to the cinema. A milestone in the history of British cinema.